RELIGIOUS LEADER INFLUENCE ON CONTRACEPTIVE DECISION-MAKING IN URBAN SENEGAL

Objective: Data from Senegal's baseline evaluation in 2010 from the Measurement, Learning, and Evaluation Project (MLE) was used to determine if religious leaders influence contraceptive decision-making among urban Senegalese women. Methods: Data was collected from a probability sample of 5,523 households. Exclusion criteria for analysis comprised of women who had never heard of any contraceptive method, were pregnant or sterile at time of interview, and women who had never had sex (n=5930). Reported exposure to a religious/community leader the 12 months prior to interview was the primary predictor variable, and current contraceptive use was the outcome variable. Seven multivariate logistic regression models examined this relationship, adjusting for both sociodemographic characteristics and religious social norms. Results: Reported exposure to a religious or community leader speaking about family planning (FP) in the 12 months prior to interview was significantly associated with contraceptive use at the time of interview. Women who heard a religious/community leader speak positively about FP (OR: 1.60; p<0.001) and women who heard a religious/community leader speak negatively about FP (OR: 1.26; p<0.05) both had increased odds of using contraception. These findings were not sensitive to adjustment for potential sociodemographic confounders and religious social norms. Conclusion: Greater religious and community leader involvement in FP programs could contribute to a better informed, engaged community where urban Senegalese women will be able to make reproductive decisions that are in accordance with their desired fertility. These findings contribute to research on the relationship between culture and health that are crucial for determining culturally competent, evidence-based interventions that will affect the health and well-being of underserved populations worldwide.Master of Public Healt

Identification and characterization of a novel non-structural protein of bluetongue virus

Bluetongue virus (BTV) is the causative agent of a major disease of livestock (bluetongue). For over two decades, it has been widely accepted that the 10 segments of the dsRNA genome of BTV encode for 7 structural and 3 non-structural proteins. The non-structural proteins (NS1, NS2, NS3/NS3a) play different key roles during the viral replication cycle. In this study we show that BTV expresses a fourth non-structural protein (that we designated NS4) encoded by an open reading frame in segment 9 overlapping the open reading frame encoding VP6. NS4 is 77–79 amino acid residues in length and highly conserved among several BTV serotypes/strains. NS4 was expressed early post-infection and localized in the nucleoli of BTV infected cells. By reverse genetics, we showed that NS4 is dispensable for BTV replication in vitro, both in mammalian and insect cells, and does not affect viral virulence in murine models of bluetongue infection. Interestingly, NS4 conferred a replication advantage to BTV-8, but not to BTV-1, in cells in an interferon (IFN)-induced antiviral state. However, the BTV-1 NS4 conferred a replication advantage both to a BTV-8 reassortant containing the entire segment 9 of BTV-1 and to a BTV-8 mutant with the NS4 identical to the homologous BTV-1 protein. Collectively, this study suggests that NS4 plays an important role in virus-host interaction and is one of the mechanisms played, at least by BTV-8, to counteract the antiviral response of the host. In addition, the distinct nucleolar localization of NS4, being expressed by a virus that replicates exclusively in the cytoplasm, offers new avenues to investigate the multiple roles played by the nucleolus in the biology of the cell

13Th International Conference On Conservative Management Of Spinal Deformities And First Joint Meeting Of The International Research Society On Spinal Deformities And The Society On Scoliosis Orthopaedic And Rehabilitation Treatment – Sosort-Irssd 2016 Meeting

PubMe

Common variation near CDKN1A, POLD3 and SHROOM2 influences colorectal cancer risk

We performed a meta-analysis of five genome-wide association studies to identify common variants influencing colorectal cancer (CRC) risk comprising 8,682 cases and 9,649 controls. Replication analysis was performed in case-control sets totaling 21,096 cases and 19,555 controls. We identified three new CRC risk loci at 6p21 (rs1321311, near CDKN1A; P = 1.14 × 10 -10), 11q13.4 (rs3824999, intronic to POLD3; P = 3.65 × 10 -10) and Xp22.2 (rs5934683, near SHROOM2; P = 7.30 × 10 -10) This brings the number of independent loci associated with CRC risk to 20 and provides further insight into the genetic architecture of inherited susceptibility to CRC.</p